I Feel Awful, Thanks is a graphic novel featuring a young witch named Joana who lands her dream job. Joana must navigate many adult issues such as a horrible boss, an awkward roommate situation, friends and relationships. This book represents the topic of mental health and self care in an interesting way. Unfortunately the story lagged at times and sometimes the font was too small to easily read when there was a very text heavy scene. Recommended as a secondary purchase for large collecitons.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for the e-arc!

I Feel Awful, Thanks is a story about Joana, a young witch that gets her dream job. However, things turn sour quickly when she has to deal with a terrible boss, fatigue, and the struggles of adulthood. Joana's journey is not easy and with the dragons inside her she has to decide how she is going to take care of herself. I enjoyed seeing Joana's journey and I felt the conversations on mental health were nuanced and important to the plot. I would recommend checking this out if you like stories about witches that are coming into their own.

I Feel Awful, Thanks is a cute and quirky graphic novel about a young witch named Joana who moves to the city for her dream job. Like many young non-witches, she isn't sure how to stand up to her boss or tell her new boyfriend that the placating "it will be fiiine"s don't actually help.

We watch Joana do the magical version of the mental and emotional growing up that a lot of us needed to do in our 20s as she learns to set boundaries and manage her emotions while building the dream adult life she always wanted.

Thank you Oni Press and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. This book explores the topics of mental health and realities of adult life (job, relationships) with a touch of magical realism. Beautiful illustrations further enhance the story.

Thank you to Netgalley, Lara Pickle, and Oni Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.

I Feel Awful, Thanks is the story of Joana, a young witch, moving to a new city to work in a new job, and slowly learning about herself, her boundaries, and the true depth and meaning of her own happiness.

Frank and honest discussions about mental health between characters are always wonderful to read, and Joana's journey of self-discovery and self-love is a beautiful one to be brought along on. Mix all this into a world of fantasy and magic, and you have an emotional, joyous read as Joana seeks help and is assisted in finding and developing the tools and tricks she needs to manage her emotions and anxieties.

Also, one of my favourite things about I Feel Awful, Thanks, is the art. To see the panels splinter, crack, and shatter as Joana tells people "I'm fine" or as she spirals into negative thought patterns was mindblowing. Simple, yet incredibly effective. I loved this graphic novel, so much.

Joana lands her dream job in London and soon learns that even when everything seems to be going well and like life should be perfect, it doesn't always go as smoothly as we think it should. From difficult bosses to horrible flatmates, Joana begins to struggle with her job, her relationships, and her new life. She begins to work even harder to try and make things perfect, but she can't keep it up or keep her feelings locked away forever.

What I liked: The artwork is colorful and charming. Pickle's story, highly relatable for anyone who has ever found themselves in a new town and a job that they thought would be perfect only to find that things are actually pretty terrible, also works for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed, frustrated, and like they just cannot get it together. I also loved the idea of Joana's emotions as dragons needing to be tamed rather than a problem to eliminate.

What I didn't like: I know that it's a graphic novel, so there is limited space/pages to work with, but some of the conflicts felt like they resolved a little too neatly and a little too quickly. However, it wasn't aggressive enough to really detract from my enjoyment of this graphic novel.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC of this graphic novel.

Did I read this in one sitting? Yes
Did I enjoy it? Honestly, not really. This book needs a trigger warning page because damn a lot of terrible things happen to Joana and it is rough to go on her journey with her,

Pros:
-The artwork is great!
-The overall message and emphasis on mental health and how to face life challenges

Cons:
-The romance - it came out of nowhere, it was toxic (but I guess that's another challenge to face)
-The world-building was weak in the book itself, but there was a bunch of extra info at the end

Meh:
-That ending with her boss. Spoiler: She gets her boss fired for being an asshole and the company gives her, an entry-level employee, the lead project manager job. Like...what?

I would still recommend this to older teens and young adults struggling with life's challenges.

There were many things I related to in this graphic novel.

“Too sensitive.”
“It’s a 'him' problem.”
“… anxiety told me…”
“Adulting sucks.”

As someone who struggles with my mental health on a daily basis, I really appreciate the overarching message regarding anxiety/depression and managing your “inner dragons” (emotions).

There were some things that caused me to raise my eyebrows (not in a good way), but I will admit that some of my reaction might be a “me” problem and an experience I haven’t walked through in my own therapy journey.

All in all, I feel like the intention was positive and the conversations within this graphic novel are meaningful and relatable.

Lovely art style and message, with a world I wouldn’t mind spending much more time in! While I enjoyed this overall, the experience felt more like reading a self help/book about anxiety than a fantasy story. I can see an audience who would love this much more and benefit from some of the teachings, though!

To say that I adored this book would be a huge understatement. It takes it's rank among the rest of the graphic novels I love as one of my favorites. It reminds me of if you mixed Giant Days and the Tea Dragon Society and added in a little bit of Crumbs. I CANNOT wait to get the physical copy of this.

The was an excellent story of mental health and the importance of dealing with your emotions. I liked the main characters and felt as angry as them at the injustices they dealt with throughout the story. And all of this had the uniqueness of being set in a magic version of our world that added a fun layer and left me wanting more stories set in that world.

Graphic novel following Joana, a witch navigating the trials and tribulations of adulthood. Through this story, we see how hard it is for Joana to control her emotions
I Am Awful, Thanks is an illustrated graphic novel that follows the journey of a witch Joana as she navigates adulthood (including friendships, relationships, work, etc) and the challenges she faces in controlling her emotions. There is a lot of positive body talk in this book.

Thanks for the ARC, Netgalley!

I thought that 'I feel awful, thanks' had a lovely cosy setting. The idea that witches are just sort of there in London and using their magic for lovely mundane things just gave this excellent vibe that I really immediately gelled with and found intriguing. This was seriously helped by the gorgeous art style, including the range of colours that transformed the mood of the tale as we followed Joanna's emotions.

The premise that focussed on mental health and the importance of taming your own 'dragons' was one that I think is vital for young people to read about and this was tackled in such an accessible and clear way. The advice of the dragon tamer could be applied in real life situations and I felt that this book didn't talk down to its audience, instead educated and validated.

Lovely story, great artwork and important message. 4 out of 5 stars.

i feel awful, thanks is a cozy graphic novel following jo, a charming witch who just accepted her dream job creating potions in london.

since jo is originally from spain, this story is able to delve into the anxieties of new beginnings: a new city, a new job, and making new friends. lara pickle also explores ideas such as toxic positivity, harmful coping mechanisms, and dismissive relationships. i really loved her idea of our emotions being dragons that sometimes may require taming. emotions can be scary, and that's okay!

i love graphic novels because you can tackle important topics and look absolutely beautiful while doing it. the art stye and color pallet of this one is mwah *chefs kiss*

i do wish that there was more world building and explanation to the emotion dragons before they came into play. i never felt lost, but i would've loved more! i also felt that the plot lacked some flow and bounced around from plot point to plot point. this was my first lara pickle and i will definitely continue to keep this author on my radar.

thank you netgalley and oni press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I Am Awful, Thanks is an illustrated graphic novel that follows the journey of a witch Joana as she navigates adulthood (including friendships, relationships, work, etc) and the challenges she faces in controlling her emotions. It was enjoyable to see the positive dialogue and the show of support between the characters regarding mental health. In some cases, we are unable to handle everything by ourselves, and receiving professional assistance and having a great support team can greatly improve the mental health of an individual.

Thank you so much for letting me read this graphic novel. Even though there is a lot of magic in this story, the dayly struggles the characters went throug felt very real to me. And the artwork is so pretty.

This was a gorgeous book with an interesting magic system but the story wasn't great. It was really about depression which is great, because that's an important topic. But there were some things that didn't really make sense.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this graphic novel

The base story of this graphic novel was interesting. I love Jo’s focus on cruelty free magic, and the art style is cute, but I struggled with this one. The story seemed to skip important dialogue and events, the dialogue bubbles sometimes seemed out of order, and Jo cokes across pretty unlikeable for much of the story. I think this could be a great story, but it needs another round of edits. Jo is a bit all over the place emotionally and seems fairly immature. At one point she asks her boyfriend to stay over when he’s ready to leave and he says no, he didn’t bring any clothes and has work tomorrow and she throws a literal fit about how he SHOULD have known she wanted him to stay without her saying it. Very childish. Everything got more interesting for a while when she was discussing her emotions with the “dragon tamer” (though the whole emotion/dragon thing isn’t well explained), but then when her boss gets fired she’s all of a sudden the team lead? She hasn’t even finished a single potion and is the newest member. It felt like a cheap way to end up the story and bummed me out.

DNF at 50%

I did not enjoying this. Its very in your face and while its about anxiety, its actually triggering MY anxiety. I felt quite frustrated reading this graphic novel. I also very much dislike the dialogue and the way things are discussed.

I liked the premise of a fantasy graphic novel about a young witch grappling with her mental health, but I think the book itself just wasn't for me. The story got so bogged down in its (admittedly interesting) magical take on therapy that I found it really hard to get through. Any time I find myself skipping pages on a graphic novel just to get back to the narrative isn't a good thing. The art was lovely and there was a lot to admire here, I just wish I could've enjoyed it as much as I wanted to.